The report from the Jin'ou Camp Field Envoy was actually out of date.
Because six Ming Dynasty gunboats flying the flag of the sun and the moon were already lined up at this time, blocking the entrance to the Chao Phraya River.
These six Ming gunboats were the six large-scale ships carrying the Ming Dynasty's mission to Europe. Although they were armed merchant ships, their hull structures were very strong and they carried a large number of artillery pieces. Each Wanshi Big Bird ship has as many as 24 gun windows and is equipped with 24 6-pound bronze cannons.
This kind of firepower is not enough to match the navy of the Dutch East India Company, but blocking the most important seaport of the Kingdom of Siam is not a big problem.
In addition, there was a Galen ship of the Dutch East India Company with a carrying capacity of 200 tons. It was also with these six Daming Wanshi ships. It did not participate in the "blocking" and was just hanging around in a friendly manner.
This is Van Diemen's ship. He was entrusted by the Ming Dynasty court to accompany the Ming Dynasty envoys to visit Europe. This is a good opportunity to expand the Netherlands' influence on the European diplomatic stage! So Van Diemen asked the East India Company for a 200-ton Galen ship.
Now this boat is being brought along by the Ming Dynasty envoy to scare the Siamese!
This is the Ming Dynasty - the Dutch United Fleet! Are you Siamese afraid?
Despite the fact that Siam's Ayutthaya Dynasty benefited a lot from foreign trade, and was the first country in Asia to open its doors to Westerners. It only signed a bunch of treaties in the 17th century, but this country has never I thought about building a powerful navy.
By the way, the military strength of the Ayutthaya Dynasty was not too weak at this time. Their first generation of heroes, Emperor Naresuan, passed away only 45 years ago. The Sakdina system, which has been restructured by Naresuan, is still running well and can provide the country with sufficient tribute and conscripts. Moreover, through trade with Westerners, Siam also possesses many foreign guns and cannons.
However, this state-governed land system, which is similar to China's land equalization system, was unable to provide enough sailors and industrialists for the Ayutthaya dynasty. There are only a few sailors, so what kind of navy is there?
The reason for this is that God was very kind to the farmers of Siam and gave them a flat, vast, warm and water-rich country. And because it developed late and was often beaten to death by neighboring Myanmar, the country's population has never been large, so there is enough land to grant to nobles and commoners.
According to the Sakdina system of the Ayutthaya Dynasty, the humblest slave could receive 5 rai, which was almost 12 acres of land!
The land granted to common people is as much as 25 rai, which is 60 acres of land granted!
This is not a land grant to a family, but a land grant to a commoner, regardless of gender!
Under such a loose land grant system, how could the Siamese people be willing to go to sea and engage in business? And it’s not even allowed! The country of Siam has too few people and too much land, so land is not the most important means of production, but population is!
Therefore, there are no free people in Siam. Both men and women must register with the lord of the land where they are located, and then receive allotments for farming, and must bear corresponding taxes and military service. Moreover, the land they received could not be bought or sold. If they were old and unable to farm, they would be returned to the lord.
Therefore, the common people in Siam are basically farmers (serfs) who farm the land, and most of the craftsmen are slaves. They cultivate five rai of land to support themselves, and they also have to do manual work for the lord. You know it.
As for the businessmen in Siam, most of them are foreign immigrants, mainly Chinese, but also a small number of Indians, Japanese, Annamites and Westerners.
Because the population is too small, and there are more women than men (in the 17th century, the ratio of men to women in Siam was quite imbalanced), Siam has always welcomed adult male immigrants from abroad. Immigrants are also regarded as "civilians", but they can enjoy super-national treatment. They only need to pay taxes and do not need to bear military service or labor (usually 6 months of service per year). This allows them to move relatively freely and therefore engage in business. Activity.
So many years later, apart from the old aristocrats, the wealthy people in Siam will all be the descendants of foreign immigrants...
And because there are many more women than men in Siam, many bachelors who cannot marry wives in their own country can marry wives in Siam, and they can also get an industry by the way - Siam Sakdina System When allocating fields, there is no distinction between men and women (what if there are too many fields?), all are 25 rai, and the women here in Siam are very capable and hard-working (this is the case in Southeast Asian countries). In terms of farming, No worse than men.
For a foreign immigrant who has come all the way and is empty-handed, in a country where it is easy to contract tropical diseases, marrying a local woman who has some property and is willing to work is simply a gift from God - a Siamese woman. Mrs. Luo has 60 acres of cultivated land (I don’t say how well it is planted, but it is definitely not a forest), a certain number of farm tools, shelter from the wind and rain (to avoid contracting diseases), and someone to take care of her (who knows how to avoid tropical diseases) ), and enough food to satisfy your hunger.
With such living conditions, the probability of immigrants contracting tropical diseases or starving to death will be greatly reduced, and it will be easy to establish a foothold and make a fortune.
So for empty-handed Chinese immigrants, Siam in the 17th century is definitely the most ideal place to go, not just one of them!
If the Ming Empire's strength in Southeast Asia in the past two years had not frightened King Basathon of the Ayutthaya Dynasty who was engaged in the "Renaissance", the harmonious relationship between the Kingdom of Siam and Chinese immigrants would have continued for a long time.
However, the situation in which Champa was destroyed by the Ming Dynasty and Annan together, and the large plains in the eastern part of the Chenla Kingdom were occupied by the Ming Dynasty's Jin'ou Yingtian Envoy, made the monarchs and ministers of Ayutthaya City feel fear.
Therefore, decrees restricting and expelling immigrants from the Ming Dynasty were issued from the palace in Ayutthaya City to all parts of the Kingdom of Siam!
...
Near the mouth of the Chao Phraya River, on the dock of a fishing village called Di Nei Dao Village, a new immigrant from the Ming Dynasty was standing side by side with a Siamese woman of seventeen or eighteen years old, with dark complexion but exquisite facial features. , just staring blankly at the Ming Dynasty gunboat at the mouth of the river.
This immigrant is Ye Jiaxin. At the end of last year, he drifted to Nakhon Siam in Nakhon Siam with the unlucky Yao Daqiao.
Yao Daqiao was afraid of sailing and was unwilling to leave the land, so he sold the cattle he brought from the Central Plains (some of them were slaughtered, but most of them are still there), exchanged some capital, and went to Songkhla Port in Nakhon Si Thammarat Province. Settled and did business.
Because the Ming Dynasty implemented the "Guaranteed Grain and Rice" system, many Western ships going to China for trade would purchase some rice or white rice when they stopped in Songkhla.
This allowed the shrewd Yao Daqiao to see an opportunity, not to farm or sell rice, but to sell cattail bags containing rice. He first paid money to the local overseas Chinese leader in Songkhla to smoothen the relationship and married the daughter of a local village official who had no son as his wife. Then through the relationship between my father-in-law, I exchanged the iron farm tools brought from the Central Plains for cattail bags, and then sold the cattail bags to the Chinese rice merchants in Songkhla Port, and used the money in exchange to buy ironware or other supplies shipped from Foshan. Go and change the cattail bags.
Ye Jiaxin was unwilling to do small business with Yao Daqiao, so Yao Daqiao gave him some farm tools and asked him to go north to Ca Mau with the boat. However, when the unreliable Huizhou sailboat he was riding docked at the mouth of the Chao Phraya River, , was seduced by a Siamese girl aged 17 or 18, so he settled on the island and received 25 rai of farmland from the local lord, and his wife also had 25 rai of land. There are a total of 120 acres of land, all of which are paddy fields. Ye Jiaxin also brought a lot of high-quality farm tools from Shanghai Shenyang Iron and Steel Co., Ltd., and exchanged some of the farm tools for cattle, so he took good care of the 50 rai of land he was allocated.
In the Kingdom of Siam, land allocation is very loose, but because men have to perform heavy military service and hard labor, and women are not that strong, and lack high-quality agricultural tools, the land output is not large, and it is a pattern of extensive planting and poor harvest. Therefore, there are not many taxes attached to the land. For Ye Jiaxin who can devote all his energy to farming, the business of farming in Siam is really ideal.
But this business that suits him best may not be able to continue... because the "Chao Phraya" (a title in Siam, almost a prince) who gave him the land has given up to the following people. The clerk sent a message, telling him to get out after harvesting this season's rice, and he was not allowed to take his pregnant wife away!
But this is not the worst thing - according to Ye Jiaxin's Siamese wife, the expulsion of the Chinese is probably just a casual talk, and there will be no serious implementation, because no one said what will happen if you don't leave? So the worst thing is that the Siamese may not necessarily be serious, but the Jin Ou Camp Tiansi next door took it seriously and united with the Dutch to send troops to investigate... Is this going to be a war? Are you going to let people farm the land properly?
